Isotopic enrichment of plasma exhausts from controlled thermonuclear reactors by cryogenic distillation
The feasibility of recycling the spent fuels from presently conceived tokamak-type power reactors via cryogenic distillation has been analyzed. As an essential step in analyzing complex mixtures consisting of the six isotopomeric forms of molecular hydrogen in widely varying ranges of concentrations, computer simulation of multicomponent distillation was carried out using an exact method of solution of the governing equations. Two distinct fuel injection schemes were analyzed using a six-column distillation cascade and a five-column distillation cascade, respectively. The two systems are: (1) 90 percent cold fuel injection with T/D ratio approximately equal to 1.1 and neutral beam injection of deuterons (D/sup 0/) comprising 10 percent of the delivered fuel, and (2) injection of equal atomic fractions of neutral tritons (T/sup 0/) and neutral deuterons (D/sup 0/). The results of the analytical studies show that the separation of the isotopomeric species of hydrogen can be carried out to any degree of purity by judicious selection of (1) the design and operating parameters and (2) the number of distillation columns, appropriately interspersed with chemical equilibrators.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab., IL (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-31-109-ENG-38
- OSTI ID:
- 7227553
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-760935-55; TRN: 77-007702
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 2. topical meeting on the technology of controlled nuclear fusion, Richland, WA, USA, 21 Sep 1976
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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TOKAMAK TYPE REACTORS
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COMPUTER CALCULATIONS
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